I was referred to an Amazon recruiter by a friend who was also interviewing with them at the time. The recruiter sent me some descriptive material about the company and the position in question, along with links to various YouTube videos about the history and culture of the company. I filled out a short questionnaire and sent it back to him. We set up an initial screening call, which lasted about 30 minutes. The recruiter did almost all of the talking, so I don't really consider that an "interview" call. That led to a second regular interview phone call with an operations manager. The interview was about what I expected - nothing out of the ordinary. He asked about my leadership style, strengths, weaknesses, etc. He asked some specific background questions based off of my resume. One question in particular was to describe business processes that I had improved in my past experience. Another was to describe how I would deal with an employee who clearly only wanted to get a paycheck and nothing more (performance-wise). He gave me a problem to work out regarding how to calculate how much extra manpower I would need to handle an uptick in the weekly production schedule - just a high school-level word problem. The interview ended and I got a note from the recruiter the next day telling me they wouldn't proceed with me for an operations role, but would be glad to talk more about a corporate HQ assignment.
I did a lot of research on Amazon leading up to this interview, including reading extensively the postings and information on this site. That was extremely beneficial and very much prepared me for the interview. I was confident that I had put in the time to prepare. But - I also saw some patterns I didn't much care for in the culture of the workforce and management personnel. My opinion is that the workforce (waged) members generally have good morale and probably have better quality work lives than their peers in conventional manufacturing, say. I get a sense, however, that the salaried employees and management team members have a pretty rough go of it. I know that comes with the territory, but it seems to be a real problem for Amazon. Too many comments about checking your life/soul at the door. I did not want to go into a job like that knowing I would be counting the days until I left. Amazon is a very respected company, but quite honestly they need to be paying more for the level of swing in the "work/life balance" they ask of their salaried/management people.
My advice is to read and re-read the postings on this site. Everyone is different - I gave my opinion on what I found, but the fact that the company didn't suit me doesn't mean it wouldn't suit you. Be honest with yourself as you proceed and good luck!
